Rethinking African security in the anthropocene: an alternative framework

Abstract

Introduction:

Traditional approaches to African security often treat neocolonialism, governance failures, and terrorism as isolated issues, obscuring their systemic interconnections under Anthropocene conditions of human-induced environmental change. This study argues that African security should be reconceptualized in light of climate change, resource depletion, and ecosystem degradation, as these dynamics reshape the continent’s collective security arrangements.

Methods:

This research combines critical analysis of African collective security mechanisms, focusing on the African Union and the African Peace and Security Architecture, with qualitative evidence from 15 unstructured interviews conducted in Mali, Nigeria, and Egypt between July and October 2025. Thematic qualitative content analysis was conducted manually to trace the interactions among environmental stressors, external funding patterns, and local governance practices within specific security contexts.

Results:

The analysis shows that climate and environmental stressors are significant security multipliers, intensifying grievances tied to marginalization, governance deficits, and economic precarity. It also shows that the African Union’s collective security instruments remain heavily dependent on external funding, reinforcing Western-centric, state-focused paradigms and privileging militarized responses over preventive, locally grounded strategies.

Discussion:

These findings suggest that African security thinking must move beyond externally driven, securitized models toward endogenous frameworks that reflect the lived realities of the Anthropocene. Such frameworks should incorporate local practices and knowledge systems, strengthen regional solidarity, and prioritize human dignity, ecosystem resilience, and hybrid governance arrangements as foundational principles for sustainable stability across the continent.

1 Introduction

Security has always been a central theme in literature and discussions about Africa, as the continent’s development and the well-being of its people are closely connected. Internal and external factors shape Africa’s security challenges, creating complex, overlapping issues. Scholars frequently analyze these influences as distinct areas, concentrating on neocolonialism, international political economy, social and political integration, international aid, migration, governance, terrorism, and peace (Cocodia and Solomon, 2023). Nevertheless, most African security studies prioritize institutional, geopolitical, or governance-based explanations of conflict, while systematically neglecting the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA)'s strategic integration of climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation as central drivers of insecurity (Trombetta, 2021). While these perspectives are insightful, they provide limited analytical leverage for understanding how ecological changes fundamentally reshape the ontology of insecurity in Africa.

This gap is further exacerbated by a notable deficiency in the literature: current scholarship on APSA has yet to develop a systematic framework for envisioning a genuinely indigenous and hybrid APSA that places environmental security at its operational and normative core. Existing studies typically either evaluate APSA’s institutional design independently of ecological factors or discuss climate-security linkages without detailing the architectural reforms necessary to integrate them into Africa’s collective security structures. The present paper addresses both aspects of this gap. To address this limitation, this paper adopts the Anthropocene as an analytical lens—a framework that foregrounds the planetary scale of human influence on Earth’s systems, manifested through climate change, resource depletion, and environmental degradation (Smith, 2021). Viewing Africa’s security challenges through this perspective reveals how environmental disruptions are not peripheral but constitutive of the continent’s evolving security landscape. The application of the Anthropocene lens situates the institutional development of the APSA within a broader structural context. This perspective underscores the limitations of conventional state-centric security frameworks in addressing the non-linear, transboundary, and ecologically embedded aspects of insecurity in Africa.

Within this context, we examine how the establishment of the African Union (AU) (2020) and the development of the APSA have redefined institutional responses to these Anthropocene-induced insecurities. Although peace and security structures remain weak and heavily dependent on donor funding, they have facilitated increased African participation and leadership in addressing continental security issues (Hassan, 2011). The African Peace Facility of the European Union, launched in 2003, has effectively financed Africa-led security efforts by directing substantial resources to African security actors and institutions. However, this dependence on external funding creates significant challenges. For example, peace support missions in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and Burundi, often carried out with EU support, demonstrate African states’ political will and growing capacity despite ongoing issues with resources, logistics, and equipment. The paradox of receiving substantial funding for African solutions and external influence highlights the dependency dilemma. It raises questions about true independence and ownership of security initiatives on the continent.

In the Anthropocene, the intersection of environmental changes and security in Africa becomes increasingly critical. Scholars and policymakers are increasingly recognizing climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation as major security threats (Trombetta, 2021; Miswar, 2025). For example, competition over the shrinking resources of the Nile River between riparian states such as Egypt and Ethiopia highlights how environmental scarcity can worsen conflicts. Similarly, in Mali, the impacts of climate change—such as extreme heat, less rainfall, and shrinking arable land—have intensified violent conflicts (Hassan, 2024).

Against this backdrop, this study offers three interrelated original contributions to the literature. First, it reconceptualizes APSA not solely as an institutional architecture for conflict management but as a security framework whose long-term viability relies on its ability to integrate environmental security as a primary driver of collective insecurity in Africa. Second, it presents a systematic blueprint for an indigenous and hybrid APSA centered on environmental security, specifying its institutional design, coordination mechanisms, knowledge frameworks, and financing architecture. Third, it introduces the concept of the “security-space” as an integrative analytical tool that connects military, humanitarian, and ecological dimensions of security, providing a conceptual framework for theorizing and evaluating APSA reform. Collectively, these contributions address the persistent limitations of conventional nation-state security frameworks in responding to Africa’s complex, interconnected, and ecologically conditioned security challenges, and propose a normative and operational model rooted in African agency, knowledge systems, and institutional realities.

2 Methodology

This article employs an interpretive, qualitative research design grounded in a constructivist epistemology, which views meaning as socially and culturally constructed rather than objectively fixed (Tracy, 2020; Denzin and Lincoln, 2018). Rather than testing predetermined hypotheses, the interpretive study aims to understand how African climate-security actors make sense of their experiences, institutions, and outside actions. A thematic-oriented qualitative content analysis, which facilitates the identification of recurrent patterns and common meanings across the empirical material, guides the analysis within this interpretive framework.

A purposive sample of 15 participants was drawn from Mali, Nigeria, and Egypt. They were selected based on: (1) having at least 5 years’ experience in climate-security; (2) holding a current role in academia, diplomacy, or peace and security; and (3) demonstrating active engagement in African security policy, through publishing or advising. People with less than 5 years of experience, from unrelated fields, or who were not currently active were excluded. The final sample included three Egyptian professors specializing in African security, two Egyptian diplomats with expertise in the Sahel/Horn, three Malian academics, two Malian peace and security specialists, three Nigerian academics, and two Nigerian peace and security specialists (11 males; 4 females). Semi-structured interviews (30–45 min) were conducted between July and October 2025. Malian and Nigerian participants were interviewed virtually via Zoom, while Egyptian participants were interviewed in person in Cairo. All sessions were recorded with consent and transcribed verbatim.

Thematic qualitative content analysis was conducted manually using Braun and Clarke (2021) six-phase reflexive process. Three salient themes emerged. (1) Institutional Framework: governance architectures for climate-security responses. (2) The African State: deficits in sovereignty, capacity, and legitimacy. (3) An African-centered integrated security framework: localized, holistic paradigms.

Ethical considerations were observed throughout the research process: participants were informed about the study’s aims, granted consent, and assured of confidentiality; all identities were anonymized in the final text. In addition to primary interview data, the study draws on secondary sources—including peer-reviewed journal articles, academic books, policy reports, and digital datasets—to situate the findings within the broader literature on African security and the Anthropocene. This mixed-mode evidentiary base strengthens the interpretive analysis by anchoring participants’ narratives in wider structural, institutional, and environmental processes.

However, we should interpret the findings in light of several limitations. The study draws on a relatively small interview sample (n = 15) from three African countries. This sample size limits the generalizability of the findings to the continent as a whole. Furthermore, using virtual platforms for two of the three sites may have impacted participation and disclosure due to connectivity issues, privacy concerns, and differences in rapport compared to in-person interactions. The results are also likely influenced by the specific political and environmental conditions during the data-collection period. For these reasons, we present the outcomes as analytically informative and agenda-setting rather than representative. This underscores the importance of expanding future interviews across additional regions, languages, and institutional positions to assess transferability and further refine the proposed research program.

3 A critical review of security studies from an African perspective

According to Baldwin (1997, pp.5–6), redefining security has become “something of a cottage industry,” reflecting the rise of competing conceptual frameworks that now dominate contemporary security studies scholarship. Many researchers have extensively studied the security concept, especially in critical security studies (Balzacq, 2011; Collins, 2025; Karimi and Ahmadpour, 2023). However, most of these analyses maintain a Eurocentric perspective. This viewpoint is not surprising, as it is a long-standing tradition adopted by most ancient and modern empires that has shaped the meaning of security and peace. Therefore, applying Western security approaches in Africa involves three main drawbacks (Ezemenaka and Ekumaoko, 2021, pp. 915–918):

• Western security institutions need to be better adapted to the Global South, with their structures and principles aligning with the unique social, governmental, and cultural needs of African countries.

• Western-style security laws often fail to fit the specific contexts of societies in the Global South, leading to ineffective or even harmful outcomes when implemented. For instance, copying American gun ownership laws in Nigeria could worsen weapon misuse among different groups, despite these laws being problematic even within the United States itself.

• Western-style political security systems, rooted in these mismatched institutions and laws, impede African political and societal performance.

African scholars argue that traditional security studies have insufficiently addressed the lived realities of insecurity in Africa, where threats are often internal, socio-economic, and environmental rather than solely interstate (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018). Colonial legacies, such as arbitrary borders and extractive economies, continue to shape security structures, and states may perpetuate insecurity through repression and exclusion (de Coning, 2016). The predominance of external donors undermines the autonomy of the AU and the APSAdistorting local ownership (Tieku, 2013; Olonisakin, 2015). These academic perspectives prioritize human security, community resilience, and multidimensional threats, including climate change and resource scarcity, rather than conventional interstate paradigms (Aning and Edu-Afful, 2016).

3.1 The traditional perspective: militarism

According to Haughton (2023), the traditional approach to security studies, deeply rooted in realist and neorealist theories, emphasizes the state, military power, and war prevention. This perspective developed during the Cold War, marked by geopolitical tensions and strategic concerns. A key aspect of this approach is its focus on the state as the main unit of analysis. Realist theories, which emphasize state sovereignty and the centrality of states in international relations, stress the importance of defending territorial integrity and independence against external threats. Walt (1991) underlines this by stating that the main focus of security studies is war. In this traditional view, security is equated with military strength and the capacity to use force. During the Cold War, scholars highlighted the significance of military capabilities (Nye and Lynn-Jones, 1988). They describe the primary concerns of security studies as “the causes of war and alliances, as well as policy-oriented research on military and other threats facing particular countries.” This era focused on strategic studies and nuclear and conventional threats.

The traditional approach also assumes an anarchic international system where no higher authority exists above states. A key neorealist scholar, Waltz (1979), argues that this anarchy compels states to rely on self-help mechanisms to ensure their security. This environment fosters competition and power struggles among states, pushing them to prioritize their security concerns. Maintaining a balance of power is another core concept. States form alliances to prevent any single state from becoming too powerful, thereby preserving stability in the international system. Hans Morgenthau explains this idea, stressing that a balance of power is essential to maintain international order and prevent any state from gaining dominance (Andersen, 2025).

In traditional security studies, threat perception and management are crucial. States continuously assess the intentions and capabilities of other states, guiding their security policies. Jervis (1978) exemplifies this in his work on the security dilemma, where states’ actions to enhance their security often increase insecurity among others. States are considered rational actors, making strategic decisions based on power and national interest calculations. This rationality supports the realist view that states seek to maximize their security through military preparedness and strategic alliances. Mearsheimer (2009) explains that states act rationally to ensure their survival in a competitive, uncertain international system.

Historical events and technological advancements greatly influence this traditional approach. The experiences of World War II and the Cold War, along with the development of nuclear weapons, have deeply shaped this field. Scholars discuss how these historical contexts shaped the evolution of security studies, particularly in military strategies and technological innovations. Within the traditional perspective, a key division emerges regarding the “security dilemma.” The security dilemma describes the paradox where efforts by one state to improve its security unintentionally increase insecurity for others (Jervis, 1978). This dilemma may arise from the difficulty of distinguishing between offensive and defensive military capabilities and the challenge of correctly interpreting other states’ intentions, known as the “problem of other minds.”

Consequently, states’ actions to protect themselves often escalate tensions and perpetuate cycles of hostility (Glaser, 1997). Attempts to address this dilemma through schools of thought like realism, liberalism, and constructivism offer varied perspectives but ultimately grapple with the core issue of uncertainty. Realism assumes that power is fundamental to state survival, leading to a perpetual struggle for dominance. According to realists, states are engaged in an ongoing conflict for security, resulting in a spiral of distrust and conflict (Tang, 2009). In contrast, liberals are more optimistic about mitigating the security dilemma through cooperation and collective security arrangements (Lake, 2001). They argue that institutions like alliances and international organizations can help states overcome their security concerns and build trust among nations. Furthermore, constructivism views security dilemmas as socially constructed, with identity and discourse shaping perceptions of threats and alliances. Despite these diverse perspectives, the persistent uncertainty ensures that the security dilemma remains a complex and enduring challenge in international politics.

While the traditional approach emphasizes the state, military strength, and war prevention within an anarchic international system, it often fails to reflect the realities of many African countries, where security threats are internal and complex. Military power alone cannot address internal threats such as political instability, economic inequality, and social conflict. As some writers note, security goes beyond mere survival to include protecting social values and enabling a meaningful, fulfilling life. Moreover, if militarism idealizes physical power, military mobilization, and specific civil-military relations, it takes on a different meaning in African contexts (Williams, 2007). It often appears as a process where military influence expands into civilian areas, blurring the line between military and civilian roles. This increasing influence and integration of the military into civilian life make the application of militarism in African environments a unique and complicated phenomenon.

Historically, studies on African militarism have been based on Eurocentric theories of modernization and political development. In the initial postcolonial period, African armies were seen as potential agents of modernization. However, over time, African militarism increasingly came to be viewed as a deviation from Western ideals of military professionalism and political order. Previous studies have highlighted the clear political roles of African military institutions, often marked by praetorian rule and frequent coups (Ayoola et al., 2024). African armies are viewed as entities with clientelist loyalties rather than as cohesive and professional military organizations. Conversely, some Marxist-inspired approaches see African militarism as a byproduct of imperialist strategies aimed at maintaining economic dependency in newly independent states. This perspective portrays Africa as a passive victim of Western hegemonic forces, a theme that recurs in later literature on Third World militarism, emphasizing the role of Western arms exports and military aid.

In this context, foreign interventions have significantly shaped African security, often with unintended and complex consequences. In regions like the Sahel and the Sahara, external actors have engaged under the banner of the “war on terror,” aiming to stabilize and secure areas seen as threats to global security (Solomon and Cocodia, 2023). Three cases illustrate why Western counterinsurgency and counterterrorism models frequently fail to align with the African context: the French campaign in the Sahel, United States support for Nigeria against Boko Haram, and British security assistance in Somalia. Academic research shows that, in each instance, military doctrine was transferred more effectively than the political conditions required for lasting stability.

In the Sahel, the French army’s recent counterinsurgency approach drew on experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq and was further developed alongside American and British concepts. Operation Barkhane implemented this strategy through a regional, intelligence-driven model that combined combat operations with civil-military engagement and cross-border mobility. However, Shurkin (2020) argues that the French intervention reinstated existing political systems and prioritized combat over political transformation. The conclusion of Operation Barkhane in 2022 marked a strategic failure, highlighting the limitations of military-led stabilization and the decline in French influence following Mali’s rejection of Western security involvement.

The Nigerian case presents a related but distinct scenario. The United States has pursued a “small-footprint” approach, emphasizing collaboration between special operations forces and local partners through training, mentoring, equipping, advanced surveillance, and remote strikes. Iwuoha (2019) applies this model to U. S.–Nigeria cooperation against Boko Haram but concludes that years of partnership did not significantly weaken the insurgency because of substantial differences in U. S. and Nigerian security priorities. Additional research supports these findings, noting tensions between immediate security imperatives and human rights, as well as reports of abuses, overreach, corruption, and low morale within the Nigerian military.

Somalia exhibits a similar pattern in a more complex context. The British model after 9/11 drew on the “hearts and minds” approach from Northern Ireland, emphasizing political will, police leadership, and civil-military cooperation, and it influenced broader Anglo-American counterinsurgency efforts. Nevertheless, studies of Somali force-building indicate that British assistance was only one element of a highly internationalized initiative. Williams (2018) finds that over a decade of support for the Somali National Army was unsuccessful due to inadequate donor coordination, weak institutions, clan politics, and the challenges of building a national army amid ongoing conflict. Additionally, clan loyalty frequently outweighed allegiance to the central government. Williams’s broader analysis of the campaign against al-Shabaab shows that military force alone, without solid governance, public services, and a legitimate political order, tends to leave the insurgency persistent.

Collectively, these three cases are instructive not because they represent successful Western intervention but because they reveal a consistent pattern: imported counterinsurgency and counterterrorism methods may yield short-term gains and strengthen certain units, but when applied in divided states with weak institutions, they often reframe strategy as a security issue, foster dependence on external support, and lead to disappointment rather than sustainable political solutions.

Furthermore, external actors’ involvement in African security is closely connected to their economic interests and strategic objectives. The substantial financial aid from the European Union for programs such as the African Peace Facility and the G5 Sahel Joint Force highlights a dedication to stabilizing the region but also reveals the strategic goal of limiting migration and safeguarding European borders. This security strategy, while supplying the essential resources for peacekeeping and state-building, often results in dependence on external funding and influence, restricting African states’ autonomy in tackling their security issues. The focus on counterterrorism and border security can sometimes overshadow the importance of comprehensive development and governance reforms, creating a cycle of instability and reliance on external support. Therefore, decolonizing Africa’s political sphere must also involve economic decolonization to promote sustainable growth and genuine human security.

3.2 Securitization theory

In the post-Cold War era, the terms militarism and militarization have been replaced by the language of violent conflict and (in)security, reflecting broader shifts in international relations and critical security studies. The emergence of discourses on “new wars,” “human security,” and the “security-development nexus” has shifted the focus from traditional military concerns to issues of internal disorder and lawlessness (Naude, 2023). This change highlights the limitations of applying traditional international relations frameworks that emphasize state security and military power to African contexts, where internal security dynamics and sociopolitical factors are crucial.

Securitization theory provides a different way to understand the changing security landscape by examining how ordinary issues are turned into existential threats (Otukoya, 2024). When problems like flooding, disease outbreaks, or economic crises are viewed as serious threats to a valued “referent object”—such as a community or way of life—they prompt extraordinary measures beyond normal routines. As scholars have shown, this process illustrates how language and social interaction transform these issues, much as military responses transform enemy threats. The strength of securitization theory lies in its broad scope, which enables analysis of non-state actors, transnational threats, and even environmental or health crises. This theory explains how various anxieties become securitized, providing insights into societal responses to critical challenges (Otukoya, 2024). However, the theory also faces criticisms, such as oversimplification and overly broad application. Despite these limitations, securitization theory remains a valuable tool for understanding modern security challenges.

Developed by the Copenhagen School in the 1990s, securitization theory explores how phenomena are perceived as security issues through discursive processes. Originally focused on Western contexts, securitization theory has increasingly been applied to African settings, though selectively. Critical studies have pointed out the securitization of Western political actions in Africa, such as development aid and military assistance, which often depict African states as threats to global security. This discourse gained traction with the “war on terror,” leading to the securitization of U. S.-Africa relations, governance initiatives, and migration policies. The Copenhagen School’s original formulation of securitization theory is rooted in a traditional security concept centered on existential threats, survival, confrontation, and competition (Buzan et al., 1998). In this context, exceptional measures are justified to counter perceived threats.

Patterns of armed conflict in Africa have significantly changed since the end of the Cold War. Despite the typical media portrayal of Africa as a continent ravaged by violent conflicts, studies have shown that the global trend of a substantial decrease in the number of civil and interstate wars is also reflected in Africa (Beswick and Hammerstad, 2013). These conflicts have been replaced by the rise of violent insurgencies, usually carried out by terrorist groups. These groups pose major challenges to the security forces and citizens of the countries where they operate, as well as to the African peace and security system. They also threaten the legitimacy of governments that are unable or unwilling to address the demands or grievances of these groups or to defeat them decisively through military force. The activities of these groups across borders increase insecurity and regional tensions, especially in Central Africa and the Sahel. Although the nature of conflict in Africa has evolved, significant physical and humanitarian security issues remain a daily reality for many citizens. Civil wars and other forms of violence continue to cause deaths, injuries, uncertainty, and displacement, creating security challenges for national security forces, local communities, neighboring countries, and displaced individuals.

However, applying securitization theory to African contexts often depicts African actors as passive receivers of Western security practices, reinforcing colonial metaphors of African passivity and dependency. This portrayal ignores African actors’ active role in shaping security dynamics and assigning their own meanings to these processes. Furthermore, literature on securitization in Africa tends to focus on macro-level processes and formal institutions, neglecting micro-level practices and dynamics that sustain militarization and securitization. Critics argue that securitization theory remains limited by Western ideas of the state and society, despite its anti-Eurocentric goals, and often fails to reflect the complex political realities in African contexts (Otukoya, 2024). This shortcoming highlights the need for a more nuanced and reflective application of security theories, recognizing the diverse and context-specific ways security is produced and experienced in Africa.

Thus, applying concepts of securitization and militarism to African contexts uncovers deep tensions between global frameworks and African particularities. While these concepts offer valuable analytical tools, their selective use often reinforces problematic colonial narratives and overlooks African actors’ agency. Moving forward, studies must critically examine these theoretical frameworks, taking into account the political and historical contexts in which they are applied. This approach should aim to decolonize security studies by emphasizing African perspectives and experiences, helping create a more inclusive and representative field study.

In light of these limitations, “risk” has emerged as a central concept in securitization theory. Risk scholars challenge the zero-sum existential logic of the Copenhagen School’s security concept. They do not propose an amendment to the traditional security concept but suggest a radical reformation (Corry, 2012). In this new understanding, “risk” becomes the “key concept,” in contrast to the “threat” emphasized by the Copenhagen School. For most risk scholars, increased risks require a new security logic. Unlike clear, tangible threats, risks are everywhere but exist only as probabilities. Global risks make us feel insecure because they have become endless and too large to be contained within modern global systems. This means the risk perspective on security differs from the Copenhagen School’s approach, as it emphasizes systemic features rather than the intentions and actions of enemies. Additionally, the language of risk tends to “depersonalize” threats: it’s harder to identify a clear enemy, as many parts of society can be described in terms of risk. The language of risk does not suggest direct cause-and-effect relationships between threats and targets, but instead points to conditions of probability in which risk can turn into actual harm (Corry, 2012).

3.3 The human security approach

The human security approach, introduced in the United Nations Development Programme, has become increasingly important over the past 30 years (Fukuda-Parr and Messineo, 2012). Given its rise in the post-Cold War period, it reflects broader shifts in global politics, including debates about the link between disarmament and development, recognition of non-military threats, and changing norms of state sovereignty related to human rights protection.

Human security focuses on individuals, recognizing that their safety is essential for international peace and security. Traditional state security is considered inadequate because states can sometimes harm their citizens through actions by political elites who abuse and exploit them. The move from traditional military security to a human-centered approach is driven by the global recognition that various threats and hardships are increasingly contributing to insecurity. These crises include public health emergencies such as AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis, as well as ongoing civil wars and related violence. Therefore, human security shifts the emphasis from protecting national interests and territorial integrity to creating conditions that enable ordinary citizens to live with dignity and be free from obstacles in their pursuit of happiness and fulfillment.

This approach offers a broader view of security, encompassing not only physical safety but also economic stability, access to healthcare, and protection against political exclusion. Governance failures and social marginalization, especially harmful to women and children, worsen the deprivation and neglect of vital institutions like schools and hospitals. The United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change report (2004) emphasized the links between poverty, disease, environmental damage, and war, pointing out their cyclical relationship with terrorism. The human security approach reimagines the role of the state, suggesting that states should be seen as means for providing security to their people rather than as ends in themselves within security policies. While the state remains crucial for local development and the provision of essential services, it plays a fundamental role in individuals’ security and insecurity. This perspective calls for a security framework encompassing state responsibilities and the broader human need for safety and dignity.

Table 1 compares the characteristics of human security with traditional security, emphasizing their different approaches to peace. Human security focuses on positive peace, aiming for global justice and structural reform, while traditional security depends on negative peace and stresses military power to maintain stability. Instead of viewing human security as opposed to traditional security, the table suggests that human security attributes can guide future development paths, with globalization playing a pivotal role. However, challenges arise in implementing human security, particularly in conflicts with national interests due to the securitization of political issues. Despite these challenges, the shift toward human security has led to governance and security-sector reforms in many Global South countries, with democracy considered essential to achieving human security. Overall, the comparison underscores human security’s transformative potential in addressing global challenges while acknowledging the complexities inherent in its implementation.

The human security approach, introduced in the early 1990s, significantly departed from traditional security models prioritizing state sovereignty and military power. This shift was driven by the recognition that non-military threats, such as economic instability, health epidemics, and environmental degradation, pose significant risks to global stability and individual well-being. Human security focuses on protecting individuals from various threats, emphasizing the interconnectedness of development, human rights, and security. Annan (2005) highlighted this broader concept of human security: freedom from want and fear, and freedom to live with dignity.

Critical characteristics of human security include threats beyond military aggression, such as health, economic, and environmental issues. This broad focus enables a more holistic security approach. By prioritizing individuals’ safety and well-being, human security promotes policies that address people’s needs and rights rather than just state interests. This approach combines security with development and human rights, advocating for policies that guarantee access to essential services, economic opportunities, and political participation. By tackling the root causes of insecurity, such as poverty and social inequality, human security seeks to prevent conflicts before they arise, contributing to long-term stability and peace. Lastly, human security emphasizes protecting and empowering vulnerable groups, including women, children, and marginalized communities, ensuring their voices are heard and their needs are addressed.

Human security has become a multidimensional concept that challenges traditional, state-centered views of security by emphasizing social justice and the United Nations’ vision of “freedom from fear and freedom from want” (Richmond, 2006). It can be analyzed through three main models: a broad model that aims to reform state institutions based on liberal peace principles; a narrow model focused on protection from violence and the responsibility to protect; and a postcolonial, emancipatory model rooted in Global South perspectives and struggles against structural violence and domination.

The latter model adopts a more liberatory approach, embracing postcolonial and Global South perspectives and emphasizing the effectiveness and viewpoints of marginalized groups, even when supported by external actors. This model challenges traditional power structures and the North–South divide in global governance, empowering local communities and marginalized groups to participate in decision-making and address their security concerns (Richmond, 2006).

The report “Human Security Now” offers a complementary approach to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle outlined by the Commission on Human Security (2003). Human Security Now expands on the original definition of human security to include addressing the root causes of conflict, such as poverty, inequality, and unfair treatment. Unlike R2P, which emphasizes responding to conflicts, Human Security Now focuses on preventing them through sustainable development and peacebuilding. The report highlights 10key focus areas, including protecting people’s rights and freedoms, controlling the proliferation of weapons, promoting fair distribution of market and trade benefits, and emphasizing the significance of education, health, and technological progress in enhancing human security. The report also proposes various measures to achieve these goals, such as coordinating development efforts, implementing a tax to fund human security projects, and fostering cooperation among UN agencies. However, Human Security Now needs more help gaining international attention than R2P.

In international forums such as the 2005 World Summit (Resolution A/RES/60/1) and the 2006 UN Security Council resolution (S/RES/1674), R2P was the main focus of discussions about threats to physical security. The economic, environmental, and health factors highlighted by Human Security Now received less attention in these debates, showing the continued dominance of traditional security models over broader human security concerns. Overall, while the narrow model concentrates on immediate security threats, the broad model stresses social justice, and the postcolonial and emancipatory models emphasize the importance of local agency and challenge existing power structures to create a more inclusive and practical approach to human security (Aning and Edu-Afful, 2016).

Documents such as the Responsibility to Protect principle and the High-Level Panel report on security failed to capture the third dimension of human security. By the late 1990s, human security had become a contradictory framework for basic security needs within the neoliberal state. In this framework, the need for limited government, essential services, and free markets undermined local human security goals such as social justice and equality. The relationship between human security and R2P provided an intervention agenda for international organizations in post-conflict situations, with aspects that promote social justice and require civil society support. However, there was little international engagement with local issues, needs, sources of identity, or authorities, as civil society was typically defined by Western liberal standards. International organizations relied on human security concepts within the global human rights framework and liberal notions of order, while the social justice agenda lacked material support. The radical and emancipatory version of human security claims that people have the right to define their security in terms of specific material, political, and social rights, which have been overshadowed by a focus on institutionalized liberal versions of human security and by a return to a more conservative focus on sovereignty. These versions were driven by donors and states rather than by individuals, aligning with critiques of human security as too broad and vague, which made it ineffective in policymaking. Some countries that initially supported the more comprehensive version of human security later abandoned it as a political goal. The concept was not mentioned in the UN Secretary-General’s report “Peacebuilding in the Immediate Aftermath of Conflict.”

The narrow view of human security is unlikely to be practical in today’s interconnected world. The significant influence of the radical and postcolonial emancipatory aspect of human security thought stems partly from its legitimacy among developing countries in international relations. Many are attracted to human security’s potential to empower local political actors who could become independent. This shift means that security subjects are now actors in the postcolonial stage, aware of their rights, needs, and roles in government, local, and global contexts. Institutions, agencies, and NGOs working on peace and development have experienced the realities and demands of “everyday peace,” with Southern countries often far from abstract international goals and laws. Raising people’s dignity and freeing them from fear and want involves protecting and empowering individuals’ self-potential.

3.4 Ecological security

At the start of the 21st century, fast population growth and uncontrolled economic and social progress increased pressure on the environment. This rapid, unregulated human activity and resource use have led to multiple environmental issues, including ecosystem degradation, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, desertification, and pollution of water, air, and soil, as well as the El Niño and La Niña phenomena. All these problems directly threaten regional and national security and hinder sustainable development. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the average surface temperature of the Earth and oceans in 2023 was 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (1.18 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average, underscoring the severity of climate change and its widespread impacts. Despite increasing concerns about climate change, oil-producing countries, which accounted for 84% of carbon dioxide emissions in 2021, plan to boost oil, gas, and coal production through 2030, worsening the emissions crisis and blocking global efforts to combat climate change (The Guardian, 2023).

Some estimates indicate that humanity has exceeded six of the nine planetary boundaries, including those related to climate change and biodiversity loss. Human activities are pushing Earth’s natural systems beyond their limits, threatening irreversible environmental changes and endangering the planet’s habitability (Nater, 2023). Since the 1970s, global biodiversity has declined by an astonishing 70%, largely due to human activities such as habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change. Biodiversity is vital for ecosystem function and resilience and provides essential environmental services for human well-being. The first-ever report on the state of migratory species worldwide was released by the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (UNEP, 12 February 2024). These examples highlight the urgent need for ecological security measures to combat climate change, preserve biodiversity, and protect ecosystems. Failing to act decisively will lead to irreparable environmental damage, threatening the well-being of current and future generations.

The ecological approach to defining and analyzing security offers a broader framework for understanding current and future threats to human well-being. This approach builds on the concept of human security but goes further by recognizing that humans are just one of millions of species co-evolving within changing ecosystems. Gorbachev (2014) emphasizes that human exploitation of Earth’s resources and environment has created a dangerous global crisis affecting everyone, rich and poor alike, by driving planetary systems toward near-collapse. Myers (1993) refers to “absolute security” as a framework encompassing protection from physical harm and injury, as well as access to water, food, shelter, health, and employment. To address environmental challenges, we must understand the complex interactions between human societies and the environment and work to promote sustainable development and mitigate environmental risks. Interdisciplinary research and international cooperation are essential for achieving ecological security and protecting the well-being of humans and the planet.

From an African perspective, the fragmentation of security into separate paradigms—traditional state-centric, human-centered, and ecological—reflects an outdated analytical framework that fails to address the continent’s complex, interconnected challenges. The AU’s development of the African Human Security Index and its integration of environmental security as a core dimension mark a crucial step toward establishing a unified security space that encompasses state stability, individual and community protection, and environmental sustainability [African Union (AU), 2020]. Rather than viewing these three paradigms as competing frameworks, African security architecture should treat them as interdependent parts of a comprehensive security system in which threats to one area inevitably affect others (Smith, 2021). The climate-security-development link in the Lake Chad Basin shows that environmental degradation, resource scarcity, and livelihood collapse create conditions for state fragility, human insecurity, and violent extremism—realities that require integrated policy responses spanning disciplines and sectors. This integrative approach requires strengthening hybrid security governance that combines formal state institutions with community-based and customary mechanisms, positioning local actors as essential partners in threat assessment and response (Bagayoko et al., 2016). As the UNDP’s 2025 report on human security emphasizes, policymakers can only effectively address Africa’s overlapping crises of climate shocks, food insecurity, and conflict spillovers through multidimensional, prevention-focused frameworks grounded in African experiences and values—frameworks that recognize state capacity, human dignity, and ecological resilience as mutually reinforcing pillars of continental stability. Implementing this comprehensive security infrastructure demands coordinated efforts among African institutions, regional organizations, and international partners. It also requires ongoing investment in early warning systems that detect threats across all three dimensions, enabling proactive, synergistic responses that enhance African resilience and development.

4 The institutional framework of African security

The evolution of conflict management in Africa reflects the continent’s strong commitment to self-determination, peace, and security (Omeje, 2008). The transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the AU in 2000 marked a key shift, turning peace, security, and stability from aspirational goals into essential needs for sustainable continental growth (Angsongna et al., 2025). This change created a solid normative and structural framework—APSA—designed to speed up continental integration and promote democratic values. However, despite this notable progress in institutional development, the goal of “African solutions to African problems” remains critically limited by ongoing financial dependence, institutional fragmentation, and the urgent need for more local legitimacy in its operational models (Magara, 2025).

The Constitutive Act of the AU laid the legal foundation for a new security paradigm, defending sovereignty and promoting human rights while mandating collective action. Central to this new structure is the Peace and Security Council (PSC), the AU’s standing decision-making body for conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and counter-terrorism coordination (see Figure 1). The PSC is distinct from the UN Security Council in its operational design, notably lacking any member’s veto power and operating on a principle of consensus, with provisions for majority decisions when necessary. This progressive mechanism emphasizes the AU’s dedication to multilateralism and shared responsibility. Supporting the PSC are essential operational tools, including the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), which combines monitoring units from the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and the Panel of the Wise, which engages in shuttle diplomacy and mediation efforts. The final pillar of this framework is the African Standby Force (ASF), designed for rapid deployment in crises (Magara, 2025).

Figure 1

4.1 The funding–environmental security nexus

Although the architectural blueprint is comprehensive, operational capacity remains a challenge, and external funding lies at the heart of this tension. The full potential of the CEWS has not yet been realized; the Panel of the Wise faces limitations due to delays and poor coordination with RECs; and the readiness of ASF regional brigades remains uneven. A professor from Mali (personal communication, July 2025) noted:

“The effectiveness of Africa’s security frameworks is mixed: It has established a coherent framework for anticipating, preventing, and managing crises, but struggles with limited operational capacity and financial dependence on external partners. This duality is evident in the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). The Peace and Security Council’s early warning systems show institutional sophistication, but persistent underfunding hampers regional standby forces like the African Standby Force. Similarly, donor conditionalities often prioritize external security paradigms over African-defined priorities, perpetuating capacity deficits that delay responses to Sahel insurgencies and climate-induced conflicts.”

This structural constraint is most evident in the financial and logistical reliance on external partners. The AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM, 2007–2022) exemplifies the inherent trade-offs of external support. Its initial viability depended on assistance from the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and, subsequently, the United Nations. This mix of bilateral and multilateral financing enabled the mission to expand, adapt, and facilitate security during Somalia’s 2011–2012 transition (Akindoyin and Obafemi, 2024). However, it also led to the development of parallel support structures and persistent dependence. When it became ATMIS in 2022, the mission aimed for Somali authorities to take over, but challenges persist (Ihedioha and Badru, 2025). The influence of external donors extended significantly beyond financial support. European Union funding, which accounted for approximately 85 percent of mission costs, was used to promote mechanisms to mitigate civilian harm (Kohnert, 2023). This enhanced the mission’s normative credibility but also subjected AMISOM to ongoing donor scrutiny and contestation by troop-contributing countries. While external funding improved short-term operational effectiveness, it simultaneously weakened regional ownership and rendered the APSA’s legitimacy ambivalent: bolstered by performance yet undermined by dependency.

This dynamic has significant implications for environmental security. Climate-related threats, such as resource competition, pastoralist-farmer conflicts, climate-induced displacement, and transboundary water stress, require long-term, integrated, and locally grounded security responses. However, donor conditionalities often prioritize immediate military containment over civilian-military balance, conflict prevention, and adaptive governance, thereby marginalizing the environmental security priorities specific to African contexts (Tarif and Grand, 2021). As one respondent noted, this situation renders the African Union’s security efforts “vulnerable to budget instability and the risk that donor priorities become African priorities, sometimes at the expense of local and regional needs.” Regarding the climate change crisis, APSA official documents emphasize the AU’s central role in addressing its implications for peace and security. These documents highlight the integration of climate risk analysis into conflict prevention through the Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), support for regional adaptation, promotion of policy collaboration with the United Nations and Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and the mobilization of sustainable financing for resilience-building and climate-conflict research (Bah, 2024). However, the implementation exposes considerable institutional inertia. One participant described these ambitions as “much ado about nothing,” highlighting APSA’s shift from reacting to isolated crises to tackling widespread transboundary issues like climate-driven mobility, local governance failures, and non-state violence, all of which require integrated climate, land, and mediation data, yet remain chronically underfunded due to donor-driven prioritization of short-term military responses. The absence of a single coordinating body results in overlapping mandates, creating capacity and coordination gaps across the security, humanitarian, and development sectors. Consequently, member states tend to support ad hoc, externally financed coalitions, which facilitate short-term burden-sharing but undermine APSA’s institutional focus, legitimacy, and preventive ethos by prioritizing military containment over a balanced civil-military approach and diminishing operational coherence (Tarif and Grand, 2021).

4.2 Structural challenges and reform imperatives

Beyond external pressures, APSA’s internal structure faces challenges related to institutional coherence and fragmentation. The Malian perspective, as one participant has reflected, critically highlights that “coordination mechanisms between the AU, Regional Economic Communities such as ECOWAS, and member states suffer from overlapping mandates and a lack of horizontal communication.” This deficiency has been dramatically exposed to regional crises, notably in the Sahel, leading to fractures such as the recent withdrawals of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from ECOWAS. Such fragmentation amplifies implementation challenges, leading to slow and at times contradictory crisis responses.

These coordination failures are compounded by persistent gaps in the AU’s normative framework for climate-related security threats, further weakening the architecture’s capacity to mount coherent and timely responses to environmental insecurity. One participant criticized the AU’s Climate Change and Sustainable Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022–2032) for insufficiently addressing climate change mitigation and natural resource management, which are the two areas most directly associated with conflict prevention and environmental security. The strategy should focus more on both areas to avoid negative climate effects and support regional growth. Despite the AU’s efforts, structural issues limit effective climate governance, as strategies are non-binding and depend heavily on member states’ political will. Challenges like limited funding and fragmented coordination also prevent policies from turning into action (Mensah and Asamoah, 2023). Moreover, AU institutions recognize climate change as a threat multiplier impacting peace and security, but their overall effectiveness varies due to institutional capacity and the complexities of climate action in Africa.

In any case, APSA is a hybrid of deeply rooted African norms and imported Western models, with institutional formation heavily influenced by Western structures. However, non-state actors (NSAs) are often marginalized within formal security frameworks, weakening the system’s inclusiveness and field relevance. Experts suggest four priority areas for institutional reform: clarifying the division of labor, transforming Security Sector Governance, and increasing financial independence through self-financing. The most impactful reform is the integration of indigenous structures, promoting hybrid security mechanisms that provide legal recognition and empowerment to informal institutions, such as traditional leaders and community-based mechanisms. Such integration can enhance formal security mechanisms by facilitating early dispute resolution, fostering public trust, and decreasing reliance on externally conditioned financing. Ultimately, as long as the APSA’s operational capacity depends on external funding, Africa’s ability to prioritize environmental security and respond effectively to climate-driven insecurity in line with its own priorities will remain structurally constrained.

5 The problematic nature of the African state

However, the reform agenda outlined above presupposes a level of state capacity that cannot be taken for granted, thereby necessitating a closer examination of the structural fragilities of the African state, which this section interrogates. The African state plays a central role in the security dilemma, balancing the need for development and human freedom with pressures to maintain order and stability. As Acharya (2001) emphasizes, the state plays a central role in providing essential services that enable individuals to achieve higher aspirations free from physical threats. However, historical and structural weaknesses often complicate the African state’s role. Unlike organically formed states that emerged from the people’s collective will, colonial powers created many African states as legal entities that served external interests rather than their citizens. This has led to a lack of genuine social contracts between the state and its people, with governments relying more on patronage and coercion than on effective service delivery and public support. As a result, African states often become sources of insecurity, failing to protect their citizens and, in some cases, posing threats to them.

Despite these challenges, the state remains essential in providing security and advancing human freedom. As discussed by Spears (2007), the concept of human security recognizes that although states are often imperfect, they still possess many solutions to improve human security. However, for states to fulfill this role effectively, there must be a transformation in the relationship between the state and its citizens, establishing a genuine social contract that empowers individuals and holds governments accountable. This change is crucial for addressing underdevelopment and poverty, which are key to achieving human security. Relying on external actors and interventions often weakens the sovereignty and responsibility of African states, fueling a cycle of dependency and disempowerment. Therefore, strengthening democratic processes, governance structures, and inclusive political systems is vital to ensure states can provide security and development for their people in the Anthropocene era.

African state fragility results from a complex combination of colonial legacies, institutional failure, and economic disruption, which experts consistently see as interconnected rather than separate factors. A Nigerian peace-and-security expert captured this dynamic:

“I think the primary sources of state fragility in Africa are the complex interplay between colonial legacies—which left behind arbitrary borders and centralized, extractive governance structures—and the resulting postcolonial conditions of weak institutions, systematic elite capture, and entrenched corruption that prioritizes personal gain over public service” (personal communication, October 2025).

Participants emphasized that arbitrary colonial borders and centralized, extractive governance structures produced postcolonial institutional arrangements characterized by elite capture and corruption, thereby laying the foundations for state fragmentation. These fragmentation dynamics are further compounded by vertical, exclusionary governance practices that marginalize communities and erode state legitimacy.

These institutional failures are worsened by serious structural economic issues, including youth unemployment, resource scarcity, reliance on raw materials, and uneven regional development. External interference through geopolitical rivalries and multinational corporate interests continues to deepen the state’s vulnerability. This complex fragility leads to the state’s inability to maintain its monopoly on legitimate force, creating security vacuums that non-state armed groups—including terrorist groups in the Sahel, ethnic militias, and community-based self-defense groups—quickly exploit, thereby establishing parallel governance structures in ungoverned areas. Participants note that this institutional collapse causes significant regional security spillovers across borders, including large refugee flows, illegal trade networks, transnational criminal and terrorist movements, and increased instability in regions such as the Lake Chad Basin and the Horn of Africa. This is evidenced by Libya’s post-2011 destabilization of the Sahel and governance failures that have led to piracy, terrorism, and irregular migration. State fragility, therefore, represents not merely a domestic governance challenge but a transnational security concern demanding integrated institutional, socioeconomic, and regional cooperative solutions that address both the vertical structures of exclusionary power and the economic desperation that fuels reliance on non-state alternatives.

6 An African-centered integrated security framework and research agenda

It is obvious that an alternative security framework arises from critiques of Eurocentric and state-centric security orthodoxies, underscoring the urgent need for context-specific paradigms. As one Egyptian diplomat observed:

“African security studies should adopt theoretical frameworks tailored to local realities. Approaches such as human security, which emphasize well-being and rights; critical security studies, which interrogate the construction of ‘threats’ and ‘security’; postcolonial perspectives, which reveal persistent structural inequalities; and feminist theories, which underscore the significance of gender roles in conflict and peacebuilding, all provide valuable analytical tools. Indigenous and community-based approaches, rooted in local traditions of mediation, protection, and resource management, are also essential. Integrating these perspectives through interdisciplinary research that connects politics, the economy, the environment, and culture offers a comprehensive understanding of African security dynamics” (personal communication, August 2025).

Building on this recommendation and the interview findings, the proposed framework consists of four interlinked elements. First, it emphasizes multiple reference objects requiring protection, including human dignity, community belonging, and ecosystem resilience. Second, it identifies interrelated threat complexes, such as digital insecurity, urban precarity, legitimacy crises, and pressures related to climate, mobility, and livelihoods. Third, it advances a hybrid-governance approach to security provision, treating formal and informal institutions as mutually constitutive sources of order and protection. Finally, it incorporates an epistemic commitment to African scholarly agency and participatory research practices, placing African voices and knowledge systems at the center of security analysis (Luckham and Kirk, 2013).

As shown in Figure 2, the unstructured interviews produced a strong consensus that the field’s most consequential gaps lie not in the absence of “topics,” but in the persistence of analytical defaults that center external theory, formal state institutions, and decontextualized models of authority. Participants repeatedly pointed to the neglect of local agency, indigenous knowledge systems, and the historical production of insecurity through colonial legacies and postcolonial political economies. This diagnosis resonates with scholarship arguing that security studies’ dominant categories have often marginalized non-Western experiences and knowledge claims, and therefore require an explicit re-centering of theory-building and empirical interpretation in historically grounded African contexts (Barkawi and Laffey, 2006).

Figure 2

The proposed framework is deliberately synthetic rather than substitutionist. It retains the human security insistence that the survival, livelihood, and dignity of people should anchor security analysis, and it strengthens ecological security’s warning that ecosystem resilience is not merely an “environmental variable” but a condition of possibility for livelihoods, governance legitimacy, and peace (UNDP, 1994). At the same time, it modifies how security problems are explained and operationalized in many African settings by foregrounding two further propositions. The first is that security governance frequently operates through hybrid authority and security pluralism, in which state forces, customary institutions, local militia arrangements, community protection practices, and external partners coexist and shape one another. The second is that “security” must be analyzed in the vernacular as well as in policy discourse: how communities define harm, evaluate protection, and interpret legitimacy often determines whether security interventions are accepted, resisted, or repurposed (Luckham and Kirk, 2013).

Within this architecture, participants’ “emerging threats” are treated as interacting complexes rather than siloed issue areas. Climate-related environmental insecurity—especially in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa—is treated as a compounding risk that can intensify livelihood stress, displacement, and governance fragility, rather than as a single-cause explanation of conflict. Governance erosion and democratic backsliding—including coups and prolonged unconstitutional transitions—are treated as legitimacy shocks that reshape civil–military relations, undermine institutional accountability, and reorganize the security marketplace in which both state and non-state actors compete for authority. Cyber insecurity and digital disinformation are incorporated as governance challenges that amplify fragility through institutional capacity gaps and societal polarization, with particular salience in countries facing pronounced cyber-capacity constraints. Urban precarity, resulting from rapid urbanization and youth labor-market stress, is incorporated into the framework as a key driver of everyday insecurity and informal violence, particularly in contexts with limited political inclusion and inadequate social protection (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2025). Finally, terrorism, violent extremism, and transnational organized crime are treated as politically and economically embedded systems rather than problems solvable solely through reactive militarism; in the Sahelian context, this includes attention to illicit markets and cross-border criminal economies that interact with instability and development constraints.

This framework outlines a decade-long research agenda with three main priorities. First, it focuses on the intersection of security, development, migration, and climate, emphasizing local adaptive capacities, mobility strategies, and livelihood changes that shape climate impacts and affect conflict and resilience. Second, it calls for transformative security sector reform aligned with hybrid security governance, including civilian oversight, informal institutions, community protection, and gendered power relations (Bagayoko et al., 2016). Third, it addresses hybrid digital threats such as cyber risks, disinformation, and organized crime through comparative, interdisciplinary methods that address cyber-capacity gaps. Advancing research and policy integration requires African-led funding, academic freedom, participatory research, and South–South knowledge exchange that moves beyond Eurocentric models (Acharya, 2014).

In this context, a credible indigenous and hybrid APSA, as outlined in the AU’s climate-security agenda and related research, would prioritize environmental security within the African collective security framework. The Peace and Security Council (PSC) would retain strategic authority, while a permanent cross-commission mechanism for climate, peace, and security would coordinate political affairs, agriculture, the environment, humanitarian action, health, mobility, and development. This proposed architecture would enable integrated analysis of climate risk, resource stress, displacement, and conflict. It would also support the PSC’s efforts to mainstream climate change into prevention and early warning, including regular reporting through the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS). The following section elaborates on the framework’s practical implementation, funding implications, operational mechanisms, and potential challenges.

Effective implementation of this framework requires a phased, multi-scalar strategy that accounts for Africa’s diverse political and security environments. In the short term, the African Union (AU) Commission should formalize the cross-commission coordination mechanism by establishing clear institutional mandates, appointing focal points in each relevant department, and instituting binding reporting protocols to inform Peace and Security Council (PSC) deliberations. In the medium term, this mechanism should be operationalized through pilot programs in high climate-risk sub-regions, such as the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and the Lake Chad Basin, where the links among climate stress, resource competition, and armed conflict are most pronounced. Implementation should also extend beyond continental institutional reform to integrate climate-security considerations into national security sector review processes, defense white papers, and poverty-reduction strategies, embedding the framework within member-state policy architecture.

Operationally, this APSA should be polycentric and reflect the realities of African security contexts. The Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) and Regional Economic Community/Regional Mechanism (REC/RM) situation rooms should be linked to national hydro-meteorological services, local authorities, customary leaders, women’s and youth networks, pastoralist and farmer associations, and civil society early warning platforms. Research shows that achieving effective security outcomes requires principled engagement with both formal and informal institutions. Systematic reviews of climate adaptation in Africa also indicate that integrating indigenous and local knowledge with scientific systems enhances early warning, forecast acceptance, knowledge co-production, and community ownership (Bagayoko et al., 2016). To facilitate this integration, the framework should establish standardized data-sharing protocols between CEWS and national meteorological agencies. It should also support community-based sentinel networks that provide real-time environmental and conflict indicators to regional situation rooms, as well as joint analytical units that include climate scientists, conflict analysts, and representatives of local knowledge.

The framework should additionally integrate two analytical perspectives that are often neglected in conventional security planning. The first is a political-economy perspective that examines how transnational crime, illicit trade, rent capture, and conflict economies shape authority and incentives in climate-stressed borderlands. This approach helps ensure that adaptation finance and security interventions do not inadvertently empower armed actors. The second is a psychosocial-symbolic perspective that recognizes that in socio-centric African contexts, trauma and insecurity are experienced collectively through loss, shame, dignity, and abandonment. Consequently, protection measures are considered legitimate only when communities perceive them as appropriate, fair, and culturally meaningful, rather than merely effective through coercion. Both perspectives should be formally integrated as standard analytical components within CEWS assessments and PSC reporting cycles.

Sustaining this hybrid framework requires a dedicated and predictable funding architecture. A climate-prevention and resilience window within the AU Peace Fund, or a related African climate fund, should be established to prioritize mediation, transboundary resource governance, adaptation, and local resilience-building before crises escalate to military responses. Funding conditionalities must not reproduce dependency relationships or undermine African ownership; disbursement criteria should be aligned with AU-defined priorities rather than externally imposed benchmarks. African-led universities, think tanks, and field observatories should be formally designated as ongoing APSA institutional partners—not merely external commentators—and should receive sustained support for policy uptake, context-sensitive and decolonial methodologies, and South–South exchange. This epistemic investment is indispensable if, as Acharya (2014) argues, the goal is to make non-Western knowledge genuinely central to security practice.

Despite its analytical and normative coherence, the hybrid APSA framework faces four principal implementation challenges. First, the structural issues of unclear accountability and overlapping mandates among AU institutions, RECs, and member states risk perpetuating coordination failures unless a binding division of labor agreement is established. Second, Financing remains deeply uncertain, as the AU Peace Fund is chronically under-resourced, and dependence on external donors introduces vulnerability to shifting donor priorities and geopolitical conditionalities. Third, integrating indigenous and local knowledge into formal security architectures, while normatively imperative given the evidence on community ownership and forecast acceptance, necessitates ongoing trust-building, culturally competent facilitation, and safeguards against instrumentalization by state or non-state actors (Bagayoko et al., 2016). Fourth, embedding political-economy and psychosocial-symbolic analyses within CEWS requires interdisciplinary capacities that most AU and REC institutions currently lack. Addressing these challenges demands sustained political will from member states to invest in and adhere to an accountability architecture that genuinely integrates climate-security considerations into African collective security governance.

Figure 3 illustrates this hybrid APSA model, which centers environmental security within African collective security. The model integrates institutional, operational, and community-level actors, along with cross-cutting political economy and psychosocial dimensions and is supported by African-led knowledge production and financing mechanisms. The overarching aim, as Acharya (2014) affirms, is to ensure that Africa’s climate, peace, and security agenda is driven by African agency, incorporates diverse knowledge systems, and relies on accountable institutions linking communities, states, regions, and the continent as a whole.

Figure 3

7 Conclusion

Africa’s main concerns about the Western approach to security are complex, highlighting issues of timing, selectivity, and cultural considerations. A key example is the Rwandan genocide, where the West delayed intervention, debating the conflict’s importance despite clear evidence of widespread violence and human rights violations. This illustrates how the West often sees itself as the judge and protector of security, choosing when and where to act. Another concern is the biased nature of humanitarian interventions, with unequal responses in conflicts like those in Libya and Syria compared to others, such as in Sudan. These interventions appear to be motivated more by military and financial interests than by genuine humanitarian concerns, which fosters distrust of Western states and organizations.

Additionally, African states adopting Western anti-terrorism laws, such as Nigeria’s implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act and the UK’s Counterterrorism Acts, found them ineffective because they did not adapt to local contexts. This imposition affects broader political, economic, social, and security systems, often contributing to underdevelopment and insecurity. Perceptions of Western superiority and racism worsen these issues, with African states seen as inferior and unable to solve their problems. Western states’ reluctance to label violence by their own citizens as terrorism, while quickly doing so for similar acts by foreigners, highlights these double standards. This has led to calls for African solutions to African problems, urging policymakers to adopt local practices rather than copying Western models that may not fit the continent’s unique circumstances. Therefore, Africa’s concerns about Western security approaches underscore the need for more relevant, self-reliant strategies to address its challenges.

This paper highlights the need for a comprehensive, integrated approach to security in Africa, acknowledging the complex interactions between internal dynamics and external forces. It criticizes traditional security studies for often examining these forces separately, without recognizing their connections, especially in the Anthropocene—a period marked by significant human influence on Earth’s geology and ecosystems. This perspective emphasizes how climate change, resource depletion, and environmental degradation deeply impact Africa’s security challenges and responses.

The analysis in this paper covers AU efforts and the development of APSA, acknowledging the growing African leadership in tackling continental security issues, though it still heavily depends on donor funding. This reliance calls into question the true independence and ownership of African security initiatives. Examples such as Africa-led peace support missions in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and Burundi, supported by the European Union, illustrate African states’ growing political will and capacity, as well as ongoing resource limitations and challenges of external reliance.

Furthermore, the paper highlights the importance of tackling environmental security challenges in the Anthropocene, emphasizing how climate change and resource scarcity worsen conflicts, such as competition over Nile River resources between Egypt and Ethiopia, and increased clashes in Mali driven by climate-induced stress. These examples underscore the need to understand African security within the broader context of human activities and environmental change, advocating an approach that integrates environmental sustainability with traditional security measures. There is a call to rethink African security through an integrated framework that combines military, humanitarian, and ecological dimensions, with a focus on regional cooperation, effective governance, and sustainable development to ensure long-term stability and security. It also calls for African solutions to African problems, urging African policymakers to leverage local practices and cultural values rather than replicate Western models, which often prove unsuitable for the continent’s unique contexts.

As outlined in the previous section, this study offers an empirically grounded synthesis of how expert participants identify persistent gaps in African security scholarship and prioritize emerging research needs within an African-centered, context-sensitive analytic framework. Building on these findings, we suggest that future research focus on three interconnected areas. First, more investigation into the links among security, development, migration, and climate change is essential, especially in fragile, rapidly urbanizing African regions. Second, research should explicitly address the roles and rationales of non-state and informal security providers and advance the study of security sector reform and civil-military relations through the perspectives of institutional accountability, gendered power, and civilian oversight. Third, comparative, interdisciplinary, and participatory research designs should be employed to connect macro-structural drivers to everyday security and resilience practices, thereby facilitating investigation of hybrid threat environments, including cyber insecurity, digital disinformation, transnational organized crime, and conflict-related political economies.

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